Knowgonzalo

Our last day in Mexico is today, Sunday. My time here in Mexico has been great: plenty of good food, great drinks, awesome family and beautiful sites. Yesterday, we took a day trip to visit Tequila, Jalisco. Tequila is the birthplace of the liquor which carries the same name as the town: Tequila. The town it self is very colonial...the streets are made of rocks & bricks and the houses are typical Mexican houses. The picture I attached with this entry is of the Cathedral located in the heart of the Plaza. Every town in Mexico has its Plaza and every Plaza has its Cathedral. My family and I walked along the streets and dined at a restaurant that makes its own tequila. After dinner, we were shown how they make the tequila. Did you know that Tequila takes around 7-8 years to make!!! It´s a very patience orientated process. The process is too long to write about here, but now I hope next time you take a shot of tequila, you stop and think: "Ahh. Seven years of perfection!"

We landed into Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico on Monday morning. If you ever fly into Guadalajara, I recommend the red eye from Chicago to Guadalajara: It allows you to sleep those 5 hours comfortably. The hotel we are staying at is one of the nicest hotels I have ever been fortunate enough to stay in as a guest. It´s called the Quinta Real Hotel (http://www.quintareal.com/) and it is near a busy part of the city. The picture I´ve attached with this blog is of their pool. You can see the type of architecture they have here and notice that their is also a lot of greenery (a very picturesque hotel...hopefully, one day I will be able to be a guest at their Hotel in Huatulco or Acapulco). This is one of the few 5-Stars hotels in the Guadalajara area and we somehow managed to afford the Presidential Suite!!! (I don´t ask questions) But so far, my Mexico Trip is going great! I´ve already had great, fresh food and my taste buds can´t wait till I eat some more authentic Mexican dishes again!

Guess who was a guest at our Hotel in New Orleans? That's right, u2's Edge!
He was strolling through the lobby with a small entourage and I recognized him right away (U2 is one of my favorite bands!). As we passed by each other, I said: "Rock on Edge!" He looked at me and nodded. I guess he will rock on...or Walk On.

Life has taken me back to the Big Easy. Even though I'm only here for 2 nights, New Orleans is always an adventure for the senses. No matter how short or how long your stay is, "NawOrlins" has something for everyone. The hotel we end up staying at while visiting the Cresent City usually ends up being Le Pavillon (http://www.lepavillon.com/). This historic hotel has beautiful decor and has FREE Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwichs every night at 10pm. Can't beat that!

Adventure back on! Our Walgreens Wellness Tour is kicking off the East Coast Tour in Jacksonville, FL! Lucky me, I get to go down to the warm weather and train our new crew members. Our hotel is situated right next to the Riverwalk. That is where this lovely picture was taken. It's very scenic around here. The blue bridge you see looks amazing at night (I'll try to take a night picture). At night, it lights up blue and has this glow that looks very cool. JAX has been treating me well so far. Let's see how our first event goes this Thursday, March 23rd!

To the few that read this blog: I want to appologize for not updating it on a regular basis. When I created this Blog, it was a portal into my adventures out of Chicago. Now that I am in Chicago, crazy adventures happen on a regular basis, but just not Blog worthy I guess. And the last thing I want this blog to turn into is a "diary esque" blog where I talk about my everyday life and give my opinions about what is going on in the world and/or news. There are plenty of those blogs around. So until my next adventure, CIAO!

So the Oscar Nominations were announced on tuesday, and what a surprise, a lot of the movies that I loved were not nominated! Allow if you will, my list of the Best Movies of 2005: BATMAN BEGINS, DeRailed, Weatherman, History of Violence, Green Street Hooligans, Kicking and Screaming, Thumbsucker and Kiss,Kiss,Bang, Bang.

So in my new position I have the great honor of coordinating the great crew that goes around the Island of Puerto Rico promoting wellness and good health. This is a picture of my crew with one of the managers from a local Walgreens. This manager was extremely cool and he even baught lunch for us!! Not alot of managers do that. And not just a fast food lunch, it was an authentic Puerto Rican lunch. We had local dishes with the local flavor. So while my crew is in Puerto Rico, I'm in Chicago processing all the paper work and making sure they're all good.

Walgreens has 5 of the top 10 Walgreens stores in Puerto Rico! Can you believe that? Those Puerto Ricans sure do like their Walgreens. So it was only fitting that we would have a two month tour go around the enchanted island of Puerto Rico to promote wellness and good health. This tour offers free glucose, cholesterol, BMI, Blood pressure and bone density screenings...all valued at over $100! But it's a free service that Walgreens is giving to the community. Don't worry, the tour will tour the USA too! The picture is of our Coach vehicle where we do all the screenings.

Maybe I saw it coming, I mean, 2005 was the year of the Rooster. And 2005 had that "destined to be a great year in my life" feel, but at the end of 2005 I was offered a full time office position with Marketing Werks. So when 2006 rolled in I was already a full fledged Assistant Accoutn Coordinator for our Walgreens promotion. The picture you see is of the building I work in. I'm on the 30th floor and have a great view of Navy Pier and the lake. If you ever want to meet up for lunch, the address is 111 East Wacker Drive, it's on the corner of Michigan and Wacker. Just please check in with the security desk.